Weekly News and Blog Roundup: Return of the Roundup

Your days of trawling through the skeptic blogs in search of the best stories are once again over, because the Weekly News and Blog Roundup is back! Determined to hit the ground running, this week’s roundup includes all your favourite hits: Scientology, Sharia law, climate change, creationism and even Islamic bus ads.

One Law for All Rally against Sharia Law a Huge Success

Hundreds gathered outside Downing Street on Sunday to protest against Sharia law. The protest, organised by the One Law for All campaign, later joined a march organised by Iran Solidarity, but the event also attracted less savoury activists. First came the pro-Sharias wielding signs of ‘Democracy is Cancer. Islam is the Answer’, and then stepped in the inevitable National Front, or English Defence League, or whatever they’re going by nowadays. The former were only out in handfuls, the latter got locked up, and so the secularists brought home a much-needed victory for England. Well done to everyone involved.

Ever debated a so called ‘climate change sceptic’ and come up against the idea that ‘loads of eminent scientists don’t believe in man-made climate change either’? Without having the figures to hand it’s always difficult to make credible your counterclaim that ‘the vast majority’ of scientists do in fact recognise man-made climate change. That’s when that particular avenue of discussion becomes a cul-de-sac. But now a study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences suggests that 98% of climate scientists who publish research on the subject support the view that human activities are warming the planet. Unfortunately, only half of the psychiatric patients in ward three agree with these findings, so I guess there’s still controversy.

Ever since the Church of Scientology became officially unrecognised as a charity in the UK, it has avoided paying taxes here by claiming its entire UK operation to be a member of its Australian outfit. Australian law still recognises the cult as a religion, exempting it from paying tax there, so that explains that. Why they chose a small suburban house in Adelaide for their major headquarters is anybody’s guess. The building’s owner, who runs a gardening business, was as shocked as anybody to find out.

Paediatric urologist Dix Poppas of Cornell University is performing surgeries on girls as young as six to reduce the size of their clitorises, which he arbitrarily judges to be oversized. The operations involve removing some of the shaft whilst retaining the tip in an effort to save nerves. If that unnecessary and enforced ordeal doesn’t shock you the follow up treatment will. To test the level of nerve retention Poppas touches the reconstructed clitoris with a vibrator, despite knowing that if it hasn’t worked nothing can be done about it. It’s okay though, because the parents have consented (for some reason).

Islam is long overdue for an image makeover. In an effort to create one Muslims are getting in on the UK bus ads, but something tells me the pretty colours won’t be enough to distract the public from the questionable statements they surround.

The Institute for Creation Research (ICR) has moved, and so have the times. While based in California the ICR’s Masters Degrees were officially recognised, but now in Texas… they ain’t. When they filed to get the Texas Higher Education Coordination Board’s approval for their accreditations the court’s response was that the ‘Plaintiff is entirely unable to file a complaint which is not overly verbose, disjointed, incoherent, maundering, and full of irrelevant information.’ Bitchslap! I hope you’ll join me in a celebratory firing of your pistols towards the heavens. Yeehaw!